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Author Topic: Carmarthen to London  (Read 20583 times)
Sixty3Closure
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« Reply #15 on: August 24, 2017, 10:12:31 »

I got away early from work one day this week and noticed the Paddington - Carmarthen train was now at 16.45. Is this because of engineering works somewhere or a permanent change?
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bobm
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« Reply #16 on: August 24, 2017, 10:23:24 »

Engineering work.  Leaves earlier to maintain connections to West Wales.  Train goes via Chippenham and Bath rather than the direct route via Hullavington.
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Rhydgaled
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« Reply #17 on: August 24, 2017, 16:49:05 »

That rule, for those who haven't seen it before, is that a passenger boarding any part of a train should be able to alight at any advertised stop subsequent to the one they boarded at without having to leave the train to change coaches on-route.

Out of curiosity, whose rule is that? As it is one that is already broken on many many journeys existing today.
I'm aware of one or two breaches (eg. a few East Midlands Trains peak-time services out of London), but I didn't think there were 'many, many' examples of operators breaking it at present. The rule is my own, as I thought I'd made clear in my post (sorry for not being clear enough):

The draft weekday diagrams that went with the order show that the eastbound service, as well as being reduced to five coaches throughout, might be retimed to depart Carmarthen at 06:23 instead of 07:30. They also show that the westbound train, 17:40 off Paddington in the draft IEP (Intercity Express Program / Project.) timetable, would break one of my rules for treating passengers nicely as it would divide on-route (10-car to Swansea, 5-car onwards). That rule, for those who haven't seen it before, is that a passenger boarding any part of a train should be able to alight at any advertised stop subsequent to the one they boarded at without having to leave the train to change coaches on-route.
Relevant bit put into bold in the above quote (it wasn't bold in my original post). That rule, along with several others, is one I think should be put in the terms of all future franchise agreements.
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Don't DOO (Driver-Only Operation (that is, trains which operate without carrying a guard)) it, keep the guard (but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea if the driver unlocked the doors on arrival at calling points).
WelshBluebird
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« Reply #18 on: August 24, 2017, 23:30:39 »

That rule, for those who haven't seen it before, is that a passenger boarding any part of a train should be able to alight at any advertised stop subsequent to the one they boarded at without having to leave the train to change coaches on-route.

Out of curiosity, whose rule is that? As it is one that is already broken on many many journeys existing today.
I'm aware of one or two breaches (eg. a few East Midlands Trains peak-time services out of London), but I didn't think there were 'many, many' examples of operators breaking it at present. The rule is my own, as I thought I'd made clear in my post (sorry for not being clear enough):

The draft weekday diagrams that went with the order show that the eastbound service, as well as being reduced to five coaches throughout, might be retimed to depart Carmarthen at 06:23 instead of 07:30. They also show that the westbound train, 17:40 off Paddington in the draft IEP (Intercity Express Program / Project.) timetable, would break one of my rules for treating passengers nicely as it would divide on-route (10-car to Swansea, 5-car onwards). That rule, for those who haven't seen it before, is that a passenger boarding any part of a train should be able to alight at any advertised stop subsequent to the one they boarded at without having to leave the train to change coaches on-route.
Relevant bit put into bold in the above quote (it wasn't bold in my original post). That rule, along with several others, is one I think should be put in the terms of all future franchise agreements.

Ahh that makes a bit more sense, sorry for misreading! Certainly I would agree that something like that should be taken into account by ToC's, though I am not sure how realistic it would be since choice of rolling stock isn't exactly a thing for many ToC's and lengthening platforms isn't always possible either!

The examples I was thinking about are mainly around GWR (Great Western Railway) services in the Bath area. Certainly the service I commute home from work on is often made up of 2 x 150/1, so those who join the service intending to alight at Avoncliff are often told via an announcement on the train to use the stop at Bath Spa to get into the correct part of the train (as only the local door is opened at Avoncliff due to the short platform). And I can't imagine that is a rare occurrence (Gilfach Fargoed would also be one with ATW (Arriva Trains Wales (former TOC (Train Operating Company))) if a doubled up pacer is ever used on the Rhymney line).
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grahame
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« Reply #19 on: August 25, 2017, 05:48:19 »

Ahh that makes a bit more sense, sorry for misreading! Certainly I would agree that something like that should be taken into account by ToC's, though I am not sure how realistic it would be since choice of rolling stock isn't exactly a thing for many ToC's and lengthening platforms isn't always possible either!

The examples I was thinking about are mainly around GWR (Great Western Railway) services in the Bath area.  ...

A number of platforms are being lengthened (at least seriously planned to be lengthened) over the next six months to allow single or multiple 16x units (2, 3 or 2+3) to be fully platformed on Cardiff - Portsmouth and the more local services of the "Westbury Cross" (Weymouth and Swindon services too) which should on current timescales be almost entirely turboed in the New Year.     I've not got lists to hand - it's not "every platform to full 5 carriages" so I suspect that 5 cars should they appear on Avoncliff and Dilton Marsh stoppers won't have doors in each unit platformed.
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Rhydgaled
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« Reply #20 on: August 25, 2017, 10:17:17 »

The examples I was thinking about are mainly around GWR (Great Western Railway) services in the Bath area. Certainly the service I commute home from work on is often made up of 2 x 150/1, so those who join the service intending to alight at Avoncliff are often told via an announcement on the train to use the stop at Bath Spa to get into the correct part of the train (as only the local door is opened at Avoncliff due to the short platform). And I can't imagine that is a rare occurrence (Gilfach Fargoed would also be one with ATW (Arriva Trains Wales (former TOC (Train Operating Company))) if a doubled up pacer is ever used on the Rhymney line).
Ah; that is a problem. I was thinking the breaches of my rule would mainly be portion-working, and I'm not aware of all that many examples of that practice that don't use stock with UEGs (Unit End Gangway) (Unit End Gangways). Liverpool-Norwich, Aberystwyth-Birmingham and Waterloo-Exeter for example all use class 158s (and 159s in the case of the latter) and Southern use class 377s. As for short platforms, I guess I'd assumed they would stop with the middle of the train platformed and open one door on each unit, but I could easily be wrong there (I've never been up the Rhymney line, so I don't know if they do this with the double Pacers).

Ahh that makes a bit more sense, sorry for misreading! Certainly I would agree that something like that should be taken into account by ToC's, though I am not sure how realistic it would be since choice of rolling stock isn't exactly a thing for many ToC's and lengthening platforms isn't always possible either!
Good point; they don't tend to have much choice of stock although changes are normally made to at least part of the fleet each time a franchise is relet and that's somewhere things certainly could, and should, be different. At the recent Northern reletting for example, the new trains should have been specified with UEGs and perhaps some 150/1s disposed of with some 153s converted back into 155s instead.

I realise we've gone off-topic there, so to move back towards relevance then I will say that the GWR franchise should either roster a 9-car unit for the London-Carmarthen services, make provision to run a 5-car unit throughout without it being swammped at any point between Swansea and London (by removing calls or making them pickup/set-down only as appropriate) or should have ordered some units of 6, 7 or 8 coaches for the service (and similar ones) as appropriate to the loadings.
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Don't DOO (Driver-Only Operation (that is, trains which operate without carrying a guard)) it, keep the guard (but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea if the driver unlocked the doors on arrival at calling points).
Sixty3Closure
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« Reply #21 on: September 24, 2017, 01:49:03 »

Just exchanged so now looking forward (mmh?) as to how my travels will work out. I think a commute is stretching it a bit but if I can convince my manager this could become a regular trip. From being at Paddington for my journey home  the London side of things seems to be fairly reliable at least
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Sixty3Closure
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« Reply #22 on: May 07, 2018, 13:28:17 »

Quick update...

As you can probably guess from all the issues with the South Wales service this hasn't been working very well for me. A few technical challenges with my satellite broadband but mainly the unreliability of the service especially at weekends has meant its just not worth the worry so spending most of my time in London.

Maybe one to revisit once/if things settle down with the train and crews.
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